Promise to keep
by GatewaysDiary
Summary: The rain was so pure; "What makes you so perfect?"  he wanted to taint it. "I'm not perfect, I just care." He wanted to break it, just like this world had broken him.  Based on prompt 1/100 "Promise" Rated T just to be safe, Please Read and Review


Alright it needs to be noted that this story came from inspiration and knowledge gleaned totally from the manga, in fact before a week ago I had never even heard of "Heart no Kuni no Alice" so if anything is extremely . . . wrong, please let me know. Thank you!

Disclaimer: Um I just leaned about this a week ago, so uh yeah me no own it! Also I don't own the song lyrics at the start, they belong to AFI

_Italics = _Something that happened in the past (memories)

Normal = Something happening now

Inspiration: Prelude 12/21 by AFI and the prompt 1/100 "Promise"

Created for the 100 Confessions competition

_~°oOo°oOo°oOo°~  
>" I promise you my heart, just promise one thing . . ."<br>~°oOo°oOo°oOo°~_

He looked down at his reflection, small ripples distorting an image he already couldn't recognize. "W_hat's wrong Ac-"_ The rain drizzled down around him, sharp pinpricks of force where each drop meet its end on some surface. _He looked up, a smile plastered on his face. "Nothing is wrong, nothing is ever wrong in Wonderland. Didn't you know that?" _He held out his hand. The rain falling into it, and pooling in the center of his palm. "_Yeah, sure nothing is ever wrong in this backwards world. I would believe you more if you said that nothing was ever right."_ "Eternal, yet gone in the blink of an eye. Not unlike us, eh?" he said, letting the water fall to the puddle below, stepping heavily into it to break up his image. _He looked over at her, his eyes darkening. "Would you?"_

He hated seeing himself this way, in his role, in his prison. He couldn't escape his fate, anymore then the droplets of water that fell around him could. Just like the water droplets he could only delay the inevitable-"_Stop talking about life like its set in stone you can make a choice!"_ He looked about him. He was lost, of course, but he didn't care. Vivaldi could wait for him, she always did. Peter could wait as well, if he happened to be around.

He most likely wasn't. There wasn't much time that the white rabbit was around anymore. He was always with . . . Her._"I didn't know you cared so much." She blushed, shoving him to the side. "We'll we are friends, righ-"_ He sighed, the water cooling the heat that had built up inside him. What was he, that he couldn't even say the name of a girl. A little girl who he could remove from Wonderland without so much as a flick of the wrist. _"What would you do it I really did decide to kill you?" She smiled at him, putting her small hand on his arm. "You won't, your to kind to do that." _ A girl that while so weak had more control over him, and everyone else in Wonderland then any Role holder ever could. _He looked down at her in confusion. "How can you be so sure Ali-"_

Was it love _"I love you Al-"_ or lust _"No you don't. At least not the way you think you love me."_ that drove each person to try to win her? The lust for power that drove each to accept their fate as a Role holder to begin with, that is what he believed truly drove these uncontrollable desires. Even he, the great red knight, was not above her spell, but he would never say such things to her, not like Blood.

Blood saw it too, the spell. It wasn't her fault, not truly, but in so many ways, he wanted it to be. _"You aren't one of use you know." She smiled at him, about laughing. "I don't want to be." _Every time he went off course now he wondered if he might see her again. He wondered what she would say if he told her there had been a time when he hadn't gotten lost constantly, a time before he was tainted, a time before his mind ceased to understand. _"How can you not see it?"_

He hid it well, better than most, his emotions that is. Hide them well behind his smile. _She smiled at her companion_ _"Your always so happy, it's one of the things I like about you."_ No one saw his shattered mind, the bitterness and hatred he felt for this world and its stupid rules. He worked for Julius in order to try to break himself of those rules, _Julius looked up from his work_ _"This is only temporary my friend you know that, don't you? Ac-" _but even he wasn't naive enough to believe that would ever work.

The only break he would ever receive from his role would be when his clock winded down, and he drew in his last breath, but even then that wasn't the end. _"We are all reborn, maybe that is what makes you so special. The fact that there will only ever be one you. What do you think Ali-"_ Someone would come and collect his clock, Julius would fix it, and the cycle would continue once more. He paused for a second, if he were to die, who would collect his clock? Would it be little more than an afterimage that came to take it? He hoped not, he hoped that Julius would send someone else to get it. Maybe she would collect his clock, _"What do you really want to be Ac-"_ or maybe he could make it back to the tower before his clock wound down entirely, a final heroic act to end his existence and then it would be over. _"I think I would like to be a hero . . . no-"_

No one would have reason to remember him, or who he was, just as no one remembered the red knight before him, or any other person for that matter. _"No, I just want to be remembered."_ He sighed again, leaning carefully against a tree, the bark pressing deep into his back. He had never had these thoughts before she had come. "_I am sure that people will remember you. I can't see how they could ever forget."_ A person lives, a person fulfills their role, and then that person dies, simple as that. So why was it that suddenly those thoughts didn't satisfy him? _"You shouldn't view life so meaninglessly! It's precious and ever one should see it like-" _

He closed his eyes. The rain coming down in a steady pattern, single droplets hitting the ground to create a symphony of sound. A beautiful sound of completion, just like the beating of a heart. _"Please let me hear your heartbeat . . . Al-"_ He should make camp; it would be best to remove himself from the rain. It just seemed he couldn't bring himself to care enough to complete the thought. _"You'll catch your death if you stay in the rain all the time, you know that?"_ What was the point? He found his thoughts circling again, if she were here she would be admonishing him for not caring for himself properly, not that it was any of her business what he did or didn't do.

Still he found himself moving to make camp. Could she truly hold so much power that she controlled him without even being there. _"I don't like being alone." He said looking at the girl next to him. "Well you aren't alone now."_ He thought again about his clock, the steady ticking that echoed his existence. It would never change, never falter, the sound would be stead and continues until the day it finally ceased. _"Please don't take the sound away." "I'm sorry but I have to g-" _A clock didn't increase with passion or slow down with sleep; it was constant.

He looked at his campsite that he had set up. It seemed unfinished in a way. As if it were missing some important feature that it couldn't be complete without. _"I thought you said I wasn't alone?"_ Was that what she had done? Made it so that even the most mundane things in life needed her in order to be complete. _"I can't sit with you forever, I have other friends."_ He supposed that was his own fault. He wanted her, and that sound. The sound that was constant, but also unpredictable like nothing else in this world was._"Just let me hear it once more before you leave?"_ A heartbeat. What he wouldn't do to hear that sound resonating from his own chest. _"It's not fair."_

He felt his blade hitting against his side. Another constant in his life. _"Do you always carry that blade around? Even when you sleep?"_ He wondered what they would think if he did something that wasn't constant? "_I know you wont, because I know you. You don't change Ac-" "I could try." _ It was then that something broke, something that couldn't be repaired even by Julius. _"Are you alright? Ac-" "Did I really give up on here Julius?" He smiled knowing what the answer would be._ No one would miss him, no one could miss him, he meant nothing to this world and the people in it. _"As long as she is happy . . ."_ Just another face in a sea of faceless people. He looked up to the sky as the heavens rained down on him.

The rain was so pure; _"What makes you so perfect?"_ he wanted to taint it. _"I'm not perfect, I just care."_ He wanted to break it, just like this world had broken him. _"Please stop . . ."_ He had been running in place since day one, they all had. Then she had appeared and freed everyone but him. ". . . _I don't want to be alone again . . ."_ He heard the rustling in the bushes around him. It was a group of faceless, fairly large. They had been tracking him since he had collected a clock from one of the outer regions of the amusement park. _" . . . Please?"_

He looked back up to the sky as he heard the muffled sound of guns being readied all around him. _"Alright, I wont leave you."_ If they were trying to be stealth they were failing miserable at it. He pulled out his sword, hold it eye level. His reflection looked back at him accusingly; how could he have became this? His grip loosened on the blade _"Promises me . . ." _and it dropped to the ground. _". . . Alice?"_ He smiled as the rain slide down his face like tears. His eyes falling shut as the guns rang out a chorus of shots

Red spilled into the pools of rain. Tainting what was once pure. "_I promise . . ." _ Ace looked up as the faceless crowded around him, preparing their guns to fire once more. " . . . _ Ace."_ He looked beyond them, up to the sky. The only thing that would ever cry for him and smiled "You lied."


End file.
